Background

The collection comprises around 180 Ukrainian newsreels from the period 1923 to 1930 as well as four productions from the First World War. The 5-10 minute long programmes are in black and white and silent with text panels in Ukrainian. The newsreels provide insights into the early history of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), report on political and social events as well as on art, culture and sport, and also contain reports from around the world. The topics are often characterised by political content, such as numerous reports on the achievements of the socialist economy and agriculture or portraits of socialist politicians and cultural figures. Like the DEFA newsreel ‘Der Augenzeuge’ or the newsreels of the Vietnam Film Institute, the Ukrainian newsreels also served as both an information and propaganda medium.

The newsreels were produced by the All-Ukrainian Photo Cinema Administration (Vse-Ukrainske Foto Kino Upravlinnia / Всеукраїнське фото кіноуправління), or VUFKU (ВУФКУ) for short. The VUFKU was founded in 1922 as a supervisory organisation for cinemas and around 20 film studios and distributors in the USSR. Shortly after its foundation, it was granted the state monopoly for all areas of the film industry in the country (production, screening, distribution, film press, etc.) and founded several large film studios. In the short period of its existence until 1930, VUFKU released around 140 fictional films, several hundred non-fictional productions and newsreels as well as animated films.